Have you noticed churches don’t lay hands on people anymore? They don’t lay hands on the sick or prophesy. I was just in a church in Ohio, and the pastor’s wife came up to me and said, “We want you to lay hands on people today and prophesy.” About ten minutes later, the pastor walked in and said the same thing. You know why? He said the last four or five preachers who came in preached from the pulpit for about an hour, shut their Bibles, and walk out the door. Why? Because nobody wants to lay hands on people or prophesy anymore. They’re scared!
I think we laid hands on 300 to 400 people that night. They just kept coming. I was like, “Where’d all these people come from?” One person who came forward was a big African man. He said, “I am a Nigerian doctor. You laid hands on me and fire, fire came in my stomach. I’ve never felt that before.” I’m telling you, we have to lay hands on people and prophesy.
I laid hands that same day on the pastor’s daughter. I did not know they were going to initiate her as the pastor of the church. I spoke over her, and she told me afterwards that every word I spoke to her, she had asked God those very questions the night before! She had asked God to answer those questions and give her a word.
The pastor’s wife came forward. She tells me she has Parvo disease. She was out working in the garden without gloves on eight years ago and contracted parvo. That’s normally a dog disease. She told me, “I want you to know I really resist falling when you prayed for me before. If I fall, I just can’t get up because I’m still fighting the effects of Parvo, but I’m healed.” I said, “Sweetheart, you don’t have to fall. It’s not in the fall; it’s in the receiving.” Later that night, I prayed for her again, and all of a sudden she was on the floor. The next day when I was on my way home, she called me and said: “For the last seven years since I got Parvo, I have not been able to dream. I used to have dreams and visions all the time. I haven’t dreamed in seven years! But last night, I dreamt I was holding my hand up and oil was coming out of my hand. I just want to tell you people need prayer. They need laying on of hands. They need prophesying.”
When are we going to be the church? When are we going to stand up and stop being ashamed? When are we going to say, “Yes, Lord, I’ll go. I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” You’re in the middle of Walmart on aisle three and God sends someone your way. Are you going to pray for that person who comes by you, or will you say, “I’ll remember you in prayer,” knowing you won’t remember them by the time you make it home? Don’t wait, pray right then and there!
People are hungry. In other nations, believers are risking their lives to share the gospel, to demonstrate the power of the living God. Here in America, we’re silent and afraid to touch. How crazy is that? I want to encourage you today: Begin walking in the power and anointing Jesus gave you when He gave you the Great Commission. He has not sent you to the nations powerless but powerful. You do not need to be afraid. Be strong and courageous – say and do what the Lord speaks to you to do!
